Chapter 10
She had not expected him to be in attendance at the party. Yet when she entered the drawing room she saw him seated on a sofa in intimate proximity to Barbara Wexley. He whispered into her ear. The girl giggled and tapped him lightly on the knee, to which Jonathan reacted with feigned hurt, turning his gaze toward the doorway. Seeing Constance standing there, he smiled mockingly, and she felt her heart burn with hatred for him.
“Something’s different,” Jane said, looking around the store. “You moved something.”
Lucy gave Jane a big hug. “Welcome home,” she said.
“I was only gone for forty-eight hours,” Jane said. “It wasn’t as if I went off to war.”
Lucy, who went to hang up her coat in the office, called back, “It’s okay to say you missed me, you know.” She emerged from the office and came to the front desk. “So, did you bring me a present?”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Jane said. She reached into her bag and brought out the little gift she’d picked up for Lucy at one of the numerous tourist traps surrounding Times Square. It was a snow globe containing a replica of the Empire State Building. A plastic King Kong was climbing up it, one arm outstretched as he roared in fury. Lucy shook the globe and the tiny pieces of plastic snow swirled around.
“It’s beautiful,” Lucy told Jane. “Thank you. I didn’t have New York in my collection. Now I’m missing just South Dakota, Arkansas, and Maine. Oh, and I broke Florida, so I need to replace that one.”
Jane’s eyes suddenly locked onto an area to the left of the checkout counter. “What on earth is that?” she demanded, pointing to a spinning rack containing what looked like dozens of tiny bodies.
“Aren’t they great?” Lucy said, smiling mischievously. “They’re finger puppets of famous authors. I ordered them ages ago, but they came yesterday.”
Jane walked over and picked up one of the tiny puppets. Its gray hair was done up in a bun, and the expression on its face was solemn.
“Virginia Woolf,” Lucy said. She picked up another puppet and placed it on her finger. This one had wild black hair. “Dylan Thomas. We’ve got practically everybody. Well, everybody who’s dead. I’m guessing they didn’t want to pay anybody, so there’s no J. K. Rowling or John Grisham. But we’ve got James Baldwin, Louisa May Alcott, Samuel Pepys, Poe. Of course there’s Shakespeare, and this is the one I think will be our bestseller.” She held up a puppet with brown hair and a white dress gathered at the chest.
“Jane Austen,” Jane said, looking at her puppet self.
“I ordered fifty of her,” said Lucy. “We’ve already sold five.”
“Lovely,” Jane said, trying to sound chipper. “I don’t suppose we sold any actual books yesterday?”
“It was pretty good for January,” Lucy answered. “But let’s not talk work. Tell me about your trip. Was it fun seeing your friend?”
“It was,” Jane said. She badly wanted to tell Lucy the real reason for her New York visit, but she didn’t want to reveal her news too soon. Despite Kelly’s enthusiasm for her book, part of her still feared that something might go wrong. “We saw Gypsy.”
Lucy sighed. “I’d love to see that,” she said. “I’d enjoy seeing anything in New York.”
“Maybe we’ll take a trip this spring,” Jane said, surprising herself. “Just you and me.”
“Really?” Lucy said, looking almost shocked. “I’d like that.”
Jane took out the receipts for the previous day and started looking through them. She trusted Lucy completely, but she needed something to distract her. Now that she was once more surrounded by books, all she could think about was her own novel. She imagined piles of it sitting on one of the display tables. She pictured customers picking it up and recognizing her name. She thought about ringing up copies and putting them in bags. She was so preoccupied by her daydreams that she only barely noticed the sound of the bell as someone entered the shop. A few minutes later someone approached the counter and set a book down. Jane glanced at it and saw that it was a copy of Emma. Instantly the joy she’d felt while thinking about her new book disappeared as she was reminded of how long she’d been forced to keep her secret.
“It’s my favorite of all your books,” said a man’s voice.
“It’s a very good one,” Jane said as she rang up the purchase.
Only as the scanner read the bar code and beeped its acceptance did she realize what the customer had said.
Her eyes jerked up. The man standing before her was striking, with pale skin and a face that could only be described as beautiful. His dark eyes were matched by the darkness of his hair, which was cut slightly long, so a lock of it curled over one eye. Jane’s heart seemed to have stopped, and she found it difficult to breathe.
“You,” she whispered.
The man smiled, and his eyes sparkled. “Me,” he said.
Jane fumbled with the book in her hands and it fell to the floor. She bent to pick it up, hoping that when she stood up the man would be gone. But he wasn’t. If anything, his smile had grown more intense.
“I see you’ve met.” Walter’s voice drew Jane back to the moment. He was standing beside the man.
“You know him?” Jane asked, looking at Walter.
“Brian is my client,” Walter answered.
“Brian?” Jane repeated.
“Brian George,” the man said.
“You know how I’ve been restoring the old Roberts place?” Walter said.
Jane nodded. Walter had done a wonderful job of bringing the neglected Victorian back to its former glory. He’d told Jane that he’d bought it for practically nothing and was going to sell it as soon as he was done with the work.
“Brian is the one who hired me to do the work,” Walter said.
“I asked Mr. Fletcher to keep my purchase of the house a bit of a secret,” said Brian.
Jane very much wanted to ask why Brian George wished to keep his move to Brakeston a secret, but fortunately for her, Walter began speaking again.
“Brian is a writer,” he said.
Jane looked at the man. “Is he?” she said.
“Well, I try,” said Brian.
“Oh, yes,” Jane said. “Now I remember. You wrote that book about the … um … those …”
Walter, watching her search for the answer, became clearly uncomfortable. Jane knew he was embarrassed for his client, although Brian himself seemed not the least bit ruffled.
Jane sighed. “I’m sorry. With eighteen billion books around here, I can’t possibly remember them all,” she said, ignoring the grin she could see forming on Brian’s face.
“Brian is the author of Winter Comes Slowly,” Walter said quickly.
“Winter Comes Slowly?” said Lucy, poking her head up from behind the shelves in the gardening section. “I love that book.” She stepped into the aisle and walked to the counter.
“And who might this lovely young lady be?” Brian asked.
“This is Lucy,” said Jane. “The manager of the shop.”
Lucy turned her head toward Jane. “Manager?” she said. “When did—”
“Surprise!” Jane said, hoping to distract her. “I was going to tell you this afternoon.”
“Wow,” said Lucy. Then she looked back to Brian. “Wow,” she said again, smiling, and Jane knew her tactic had failed. “I really loved your book. Your poetry is so beautiful. Spare and haunting.”
Brian touched his hand to his chest. “I’m humbled,” he said. “Thank you for saying that.”
“Lucy,” Jane said sharply.
Lucy turned her head, but slowly, as if she couldn’t bring herself to stop looking at Brian.
“Hmm?” she said.
“I noticed that the display of new titles is a little untidy,” said Jane. “Would you mind straightening it up?”